Designer Story
TIME LINE
- ANDREA VALENTINI, a RISD alum, originally from RI, USA has been a woman owned designer brand since 2001.
- She has always been Inspired by the built and natural environment and designs molded custom textiles for fashion and home accessories as an expression of her connection to her sense of place.
- Her innovative materials are represented in material libraries worldwide intending to create a sense of environmental awareness about our human connection with and to the environment.
- Andrea Valentini, is world re-known for her innovative textiles, bag designs, furniture, furnishings and interiors since launching her sculptural award winning furniture in NYC in 2001.
- Previously
- In 2006, while living in the north eastern coast, She was inspired by manufacturing techniques and the under use of industrial textiles so she established an innovative approach to molding fabrics for an exclusive line of signature textiles for bags and furnishings that would reflect a northeastern built environment of mill working.
- In 2018, she moved to the northwestern coast and became inspired by a vegan lifestyle in which she sought plant based materials to create her next collection as a reflection of the natural environment.
- In 2023 she discovered a premium plant based bio leather made from the skins of cacti and proceeded to customize the surfaces of those skins into a monogrammatic signature pattern to establish a cohesive collection of bags that have are sustainable, sensual to the touch, genderless, functional and ask environmentally conscious.
- Latest Launch 2024 for her collection of bags that allows us to wear our beliefs, be proud of our choices, while being distinctively stylish.
Who Am I?
"I’ve really been creating my entire life.
A maker at heart, I studied fashion and architecture. My 2 loves.
After graduating with degrees in Fine Arts and Interior Architecture from RISD, I started my career as an interior architect 30 yrs ago and then launched a custom foam furniture, furnishing and lighting collection at ICFF, NYC in 2001.
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Since I can remember, I've always been drawn to the sense of touch!
I remember moments in childhood when I was drawn to touch fabrics to connect and witnessing my dad as a builder and my mom as a painter, I saw the connection between how variables could come together.
My custom textiles tell stories through texture, light and time.
They really journal my life as an artist as to what I'm feeling and where I'm situated.
Since 2003 I've been custom molding sheets of surface textures intended to:
"Draw the Eye in to Feel and the Hand to Touch!"
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I began translating these textural surface panels into home furnishings as well as incorporating my love for fashion particularly because the materiality spoke to a weightlessness and texture that would lend very well to the integrity of protection.
Bags, carrying objects seemed the obvious choice for the iteration of my materials.
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Since 2006 I’ve designed, produced and launched custom textiles for bags and home furnishings that reflect my life through materiality integrity, content, pattern and surface texture.
I am so proud of my latest AV custom molded textiles and bag collection."
This Material Surface Pattern is Truly Self Reflective.
The AV monogram and integrity of material speaks to what I am.
Being a vegan, I chose the latest innovation in alternative leathers." ~andrea
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